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Doing the research for my column on voting statistics encouraged me not to be that person. You know -- that person who complains but doesn't do anything to help the cause. As I get older and gain more life experience, I find that it is really important to get interested in life, not on the surface but really dig deep into how the world is changing socially, culturally, fiscally.

As a fan of Stephen Colbert's satirical skills on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," I didn't know what to expect when he sat down to interview the daughter of Jeff Fort, one of Chicago's most notorious gang leaders since Al Capone.

Many people believe what is necessary to gain a Ph.D. is superior intelligence. Such a belief is certainly a fallacy. What a person requires is two items: obstinacy and stupidity. As a person who has washed a rather large wooden house with a rag, water, and scouring powder; cut front and back yards, when yards really were yards, with a pair of scissors; and dressed a half a hog, chitterlings and all -- I know. These examples occurred in my youth, and, seemingly, I gathered only worn and blistered hands as my lessons. I did learn from an admonition from ...

WASHINGTON -- Most Americans can hardly believe we're having a national debate about birth control in the 21st century -- more than 50 years after The Pill became available and decades after condoms became as commonplace as, well, balloons.

"Freedom isn't free." We usually hear this on occasions such as Memorial Day and Veterans Day. It's meant to remind us of the brave American troops who put their lives on the line daily to protect our liberty and preserve our security.

The death of Don Cornelius, creator and host of "Soul Train," brought two conflicting memories to mind: the weekly joy of that iconic program as a defining feature of black American pop culture and the terrible pain inflicted on the surviving family and friends of those who commit suicide.

One of the most memorable scenes from "The Oprah Winfrey Show" was an episode where Oprah sent a seemingly "nice" man who needed help finding his puppy to lure kids away from a playground where their parents were watching them.

When Mitt Romney said his now infamous words -- "I'm not concerned about the very poor" -- he was adding to an already disconcerting track record of tactlessness toward unemployed and lower income Americans.

Combine juice from the May haw berry, from crabapples, along with some sugar and you have makings of the finest jelly ever to grace a biscuit or piece of toast. End of subject, you muse, but the paper's fresh, and you have a sweet tooth after downing a real Southern breakfast. "Hon, we got any haw jelly?" Now, unless you live in a kind of narrow swath of geography between Wedgefield and Camden, bordered south by the Wateree River swamp and north a tad on the Yankee side of old and new Highway 521, your answer is going to ...

Articles by Section - Columns

For those of you who believe in an open internet in the United States, the fight is still on. For the moment, though, we can bask in the glory of the U.S. Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) 3-2 vote last week to impose so-called "net neutrality" rules on internet service providers (ISPs).

Throughout Old and New Testament times, most Jews and Gentiles consumed distilled liquor and believed it a healthy part of their daily diet. These beliefs and practices continued from the times of Christ through the settlement of America and the establishment of the United States.

March 02, 2015|
By Harvey S. Teal
Provided by the Kershaw County Historical Society
|Columns

One of my weekly duties here at the Chronicle-Independent is to visit the Walter M. Crower Animal Shelter in Camden and take photos of pets available for adoption to be printed in our Friday edition each week. Actually, I take photos of two cats and two dogs and half of those are published weekly in the West Wateree Chronicle.

Murder is a strong word and truth be known it's not really what happens (unfortunately) when a crape myrtle, a Southern signature tree is topped, but it has become a familiar vernacular amongst plant people. If crape myrtles did in fact die when they were butchered, then the practice would stop.

On Feb. 5, around 1:15 p.m., students at the University of South Carolina (USC) received a text message warning "SHOTS FIRED" -- two words which would send chills and panic through the large campus that is home to nearly 32,000 students.